


How Not To Hide A Family

by awesomerosie



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers training trip, Clint Barton has a family, Cute Kids, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Crack, His Ex is cool though, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23056018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awesomerosie/pseuds/awesomerosie
Summary: Clint is ordered last minute to go on another training trip with the Avengers. The family that he has skillfully hidden from all of them are rightfully upset about it. But maybe this trip was the wake up call he needed to get off his butt and finally settle down with a certain grumpy war criminal.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91





	How Not To Hide A Family

**Author's Note:**

> lol I forgot to put a summery when I uploaded this. I am a mess.

"I don't wanna go!" Kaya shrieked, her little post-toddler body shaking with the weight of her rage. "I wanna stay with you!"

Clint winced at the static assaulting his ears. He crouched, carefully cradling her tiny shoulders in his hands. “Kaya, honey, you need to calm down. I just need to go away for a little while and take care of something, and then I’ll be back and we can do all the things we planned, okay?”

Kaya sniffed, wiping at invisible tears with a clenched fist. People around them were staring. Clint knew what this seemed like, and he too would turn to look if an old white guy was pleading with a mixed kid on the streets of New York.

“Why can’t I go?” she asked. “I don’t want you to go.”

Clint didn’t make a habit of lying to his children, at least about the things that wouldn’t hurt them, but telling Kaya that she couldn’t go because he was going on a secret team-building trip to the damn mountains of Vermont did not seem like a good idea. “Because...I’m going to a place that’s only for adults. There’s gonna be seminars, and chapter books, and-” He glanced around for something equally as boring to a small child. “And taxes. So many tax sheets. And other paperwork. It’s basically going to be school, but _more_ _boring._ ”

The scowl on Kaya’s face summed up his own feelings about all of this completely. “Can we get ice cream?”

“Honey, when I get back, we can do whatever you want.”

Kaya nodded, pouty lips pressed together in determination. Clint offered his hand and they walked into the building together. He then had to carry her up the second and third flights of stairs, but at least she tried. And with her cute, little, button nose pressed to his shoulder, he knocked on his ex-wife’s door.

Reggie, the most obnoxious, yet sweetest child Clint had ever met, opened it, glared for half a second, and walked back into the kid’s room. Amani poked her beautiful head around the corner, giving him that look that meant she wasn’t happy with him but she didn’t want the kids to know.

“Sorry,” Clint mumbled, cuddling Kaya closer.

“I know,” Amani sighed. “I’m used to it. Say goodbye to Daddy, Sweetheart.”

Kaya’s thin arms squeezed Clint’s neck, making him want nothing more than to tell Steve he can fuck off with his mandatory training trips.

\---

Clint kept his mouth shut on the way to Vermont. He was squashed between Nat and Thor in the back of Tony’s “fancy transport van” A.K.A. a glorified minivan. It did have comfy seats though, and wifi, which was oddly comforting.

Too long later, they drove through actual fucking mountains to get to an actual fucking  _ log cabin. _ Steve was fucking serious about this trip then.

They all piled out of the various minivans, dragging their luggage into the very large yet too small cabin, and into their too small and  _ shared  _ rooms. And if that wasn’t just the biggest “fuck you” to top this whole thing off Clint didn’t know what was.

Clint snuck to the back of the house, looking for the bedroom with the best cover and easiest exit, as you do. Light footsteps trailed behind him, too heavy to be Nat’s. Clint ducked casually into the last door, pressing against the wall as the footsteps followed. The huge man walked in behind him and Clint reached out, locking his arms around the man's neck.

It was right when a metal hand reached up and grabbed the back of his shirt that Clint realised  _ who  _ he had just attacked. Bucky yanked, and Clint tumbled over his head, landing gracelessly on the double bed before them.

Clint stared upsidedown at Bucky's smug grin, trying to keep a stupid one of his own off his face as he said, "Hello, handsome."

"How's it hangin'?"

Clint let out a snort of laughter. "Pretty good considering where we are. Would be better if you weren't wearing pants though."

"Yeah? What we gonna do without pants on, huh?"

"Oh, y'know, just some  _ team-building _ ."

"Team meeting!" Steve's voice called down the hall. "Living room! Five minutes!"

Clint's eyes rolled. "Captain Cock-block strikes again."

"This  _ is _ a training retreat."

Clint rolled off the bed, landing steadily on his feet. "Yeah, and he made the mistake of letting us pick our own roommates."

"What happens in a man's bunk at night is between him and God."

"And whoever he's sharing it with, right?"

"'Xactly."

\---

Steve had a way with words that seemed to take what could have been a ten-minute meeting and drag it out into an hour of him telling them what  _ not _ to do. By the end of his speech, Clint was  _ more _ likely to start a forest fire or throw someone off a cliff, and he was definitely not the only one. Steve knew them all well, but apparently not well enough to use reverse-psychology on them.

Inevitably, this trip was going to end badly.

\---

Predictably, it was Clint who got into trouble first. Who knew playfully shoving Bucky out of a tree during a "serious training exercise" was a no-no? Bucky was fine. Clint was more injured from overbalancing and falling into the other branches than Bucky was from falling twenty feet, so really, what harm had it done? Other than giving away their position, obviously.

Steve gave him that disappointed, kicked puppy, go-bury-yourself-alive-because-everything-is-already _ -ruined _ look, and then they moved on. And shortly after, Tony got in trouble for starting a forest fire, so ha!

"What are we even doing in a forest?" Tony yelled over the sound of his suit extinguishing the underbrush.

"Training!" Steve yelled back, looking more than a little exasperated with the whole situation. "Obviously! Because this team is  _ incapable _ of taking out villains without taking a large chunk of society with it!"

Oof, that one hurt.

To be fair, Clint and Bucky had ways to destroy entire buildings, but all of them were way more work than they generally wanted to do, so they were mostly here for moral support or something. Either way, they were required to be here, and getting to hang out with his naked-cuddle-buddy _would_ be great if they could be doing either of the naked or the cuddling parts.

\---

That night, right when everyone was getting ready for bed, Clint climbed a tree a safe distance away from the cabin. He trusted all of these people with his life, but the lives of his kids? Not a chance.

The video call connected and Amani actually smiled at him, which was a fucking miracle since he dumped the kids on her last minute.

_ "I didn't think you'd call,"  _ she said.

"I'm not going to ditch them and then not call. What kind of father do you think I am?"

_ "A bad one." _

"Wow, make the guy with daddy-issues feel bad about his parenting skills why don't cha?"

_ "I'm kidding. You're a great dad...when you're here to be one." _

"I know," Clint muttered, mushing his face into the tree trunk. "But duty calls and all that bullshit."

_ "You could get a different job. Have more time to spend with the kids." _

"We've had this argument before, Amani. I can't escape this life and even if I did, I can't just leave my team like that. Without the resident sniper, who's going to watch their backs?"

_ "You just don't want to leave Natasha and Bucky out in the field by themselves." _

"And? Can you blame me? Natasha's had my back for almost twenty years. I can't just walk away from that."

_ "You're avoiding him again,"  _ she said, that knowing look and the slight tilt of her head hammering in the idea that Clint was an actual idiot.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

_ "You avoid Bucky's name every time it comes up. What is up with you? Are you still being weird about this? I told you I was seeing other people too, it's not that weird." _

"It's nothing. Are the kids awake?"

_ "Reggie is, but I'm pretending I don't know that because he's been irritable since you left." _

"Sorry."

_ "Not your fault. You and Bucky are together, right?" _

"Not exactly… Are you sure you don't want to give the phone to Reggie? I might be able to chill him out."

_ "You're the reason he's mad, talking to you will only make it worse right now. What do you mean, 'not exactly'? You guys are having sex, aren't you?" _

Clint recoiled just a smidge. Talking to his ex-wife about people he's currently fucking may never get un-weird. "I- No, we're- Uh...yeah. Yeah, we are."

_ "So, what's the problem?" _

"He doesn't know."

_ "He doesn't know what? Hun, you've got a thousand secrets, you're going to have to be more specific." _

"He doesn't know about the kids."

_ "And you're paranoid."  _ Clint nodded.  _ "For their safety or because you think he might leave?" _

"Both, probably."

Amani let out a heavy sigh, staring pointedly at him like he might just be the stupidest man in existence.  _ "Did we have to have this conversation while you're in a tree, hiding from the man we're talking about?" _

"No, but you wouldn't drop it."

_ "Remind me to hang up on you if you ever call me from a tree again." _

"Will do."

_ "You like this man, correct?"  _ Clint nodded again.  _ "And he likes you?" _

"As far as I can tell."

_ "He's put up with your disastrous behind this long, so we're going to go with 'yes'. So, the question now is, do you trust him to protect your kids if he needed to?" _

"Of course." Clint didn't think, the words just came out of their own accord.

_ "So, why are you hesitating? You've got all the important things covered, now you just need to lay out all the dirty little secrets you've been hiding from each other and seal the deal." _

"Whoa there, no one said anything about 'sealing the deal'. I mean, look what happened last time I tried to commit to someone."

_ "You made me a very happy, though eternally frustrated woman. He understands your lifestyle better than I do." _

"Right, stick too fucked up assholes together for the rest of their lives. That's a great idea."

_ "Aaaand you're morphing back into the self-deprecating asshole I divorced. I'm going to go before you pull me back in. Do me a favor though? Think about it. From the sound of it, he's a better guy then you make him out to be." _

"Sorry. I'll come pick the kids up on Monday, okay? I'll walk back to New York if I have to." She didn't look convinced. He didn't blame her; He broke too many promises already.

\---

Bucky was a bit suspicious when Clint wormed his way back through the stupid, stuck half-open window of their room. His eyebrows were doing that weird questioning twitch dance, but he didn't ask, so Clint didn't say anything.

It was after Clint had a shower and put on some boxers that didn't stink - because Bucky has 'standards' - that he was finally allowed to curl up against Bucky's less clangy shoulder and just relax. Except that Clint couldn't relax because now he was thinking about settling down with Grumpy McMetal-Arm.

"Have you ever wanted kids?" Clint's mouth asked because Clint's mouth was a nasty, horrible traitor.

Sergeant Stony-Face stared at the ceiling for so long Clint had to prop himself up to make sure Bucky hadn't fallen asleep. "I hadn't really thought about it."

"No?" Clint settled back down. "I guess I hadn't really thought about it either."

"Must'a thought about it at some point or you wouldn't'a brought it up." Bucky's got him there.

"I just figured, y'know, since we've been getting kinda serious, that it might be something to bring up."

"I s’pose so. I also s’pose that it's got not'in' to do with that little girl you got?"

Clint jolted upright, feeling like he'd been shot. "How do you know about her?"

"I saw you with her when I was passin' your building. Nothin' sinister about it, an' I'm the only one that knows, least, far as  _ I _ know."

Clint was still suspicious. "How long ago was this? Why are you still with me?"

Bucky snorted and pushed himself up to sit against the headboard. "Prob'ly, four months. And 'cause you don't hurt people that don't deserve it. Figured there was a story behind it, but I wasn't 'bout ta push."

Clint sat there with his jaw hanging open for far too long. "Four months?! I don't know whether I want to hit you for keeping this a secret or kiss you for _keeping_ _this a secret!_ "

"Second option sounds better ta me."

Clint surged up, taking Bucky's head in his hands as he kissed him silly. He pulled back with a hopeless grin. "Would you like to meet them?"

Bucky's answering smile was enough, but he followed it up with, "I'd like that."

\---

On that final day, as soon as they were let off the compound, Clint dragged Bucky to his ex-wife's apartment. Clint frantically knocked, trying to keep the anxiety and excitement at bay. The door creaked slowly open, an enthusiastic small child jumping off the back of it and then into Clint's waiting arms.

"Daddy!" Kaya shrieked.

"Baby Girl!" Clint shrieked back. He spun and her legs swung out, making Kaya erupt with giggles. And once Clint was thoroughly sick, they stopped in front of Bucky. "Honey, I want to introduce you to someone. Kaya, this is Bucky, my...boyfriend."

Bucky gave them both a brilliant smile. "Nice to meet you, little lady."

Kaya slumped away from him and Clint worried she wasn't going to like him, but that faint blush on her cheeks clued him in on  _ just how much  _ she liked him.

"Are you gonna say hi?" Clint asked, poking Kaya in the side.

Kaya squirmed, hiding her face in Clint's neck, mumbling, "Hello, Mr. Bucky."

"Hello, Mr. Bucky," Amani echoed from the open door, "it's great to finally meet you." She held her hand out for him to shake.

"Nice to meet you..." Bucky trailed off.

"Amani," Clint supplied. "Amani Jones, my ex-wife."

"Ah! I've heard great things about you."

"No you haven't," Anami said with all the confidence of a spy's wife. "Clint doesn't talk about his private life with  _ anyone _ ."

Bucky's face twitched, turning up into an approving smirk. "No, you're right, he didn't, but I would love to know more about you."

"Wonderful," Amani said, waving them in, "I want to know more about the kind of person my idiot ex-husband is into these days. Come on in, I'll make some tea."

Amani disappeared into the apartment, and Bucky glanced at Clint who shrugged and said, "She'll get it out of me one way or another, may as well get it right the first time."

**Author's Note:**

> I survive off memes and conversations with random people, so check out my [Tumblr](https://rosiewritesridiculousshit.tumblr.com//) for more of that.


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